<Begin Segment 28>

RP: Are there any other stories you'd like to share with us, Yo, that we haven't touched on in our interview?

YW: Stories. I could tell you a story about a man going away to war. There was a class, there was this playmate that was a few years younger than I was and he was saying goodbye to his older brother. And tears were in his eyes. He says, "My brother's gonna go away and he may not come back." I didn't know what he was talkin' about. He said, "Well, he's goin' in the service today." I says, "What branch of the service did he join?" He says, "Paratroopers. He's gonna jump out of airplanes." And that was the last I heard of him. I don't know whatever became of him, but it was one of the, that one I really remember. And then later on we had a special banquet for two other young men that were leaving 'cause they were drafted, and one was a young boy from a family of nothing but young men and the parents were all gone. They were just young men helping each other out. I think they were orphans, basically, but they had a lot of kids there that were younger, but there were also older kids among 'em that held the family together. So this young man was one, and then the other person was a young man who was, I think he was about the middle of a group of seven kids, and he was very impressive. My dad would say, "That young man's gonna go somewhere someday." And says, "Why? Why do you say that?" He says, "Well, he's got a job down at the warehouse and during his break he is studying. He's got his books out studying." And I found out later what he was doing was taking courses from UCLA, SC, wherever by mail, and he was trying to stay up with some of his classes. Well, when we were released from camp his family ended up in Chicago. That's where they chose to go. That young man went to the University of Illinois, became a medical doctor, and later when he returned to L.A., or Gardena, he became my family doctor. But you can see when, at a young age he was very dedicated and not to let this stuff mess up his life, right? So he studied. But he was the other student that, he and the other guy were two of the people that were taken by the draft, so they gave a party for these two young men. And it was interesting, at the end of the dinner the two young men got up and spoke, thanked the group for putting on this festivity, and the one from the family of just adult kids, I guess he didn't learn any Japanese, so he spoke, he gave his speech in English. He says, "I wanted to thank you people for putting on this nice go away party," etcetera, etcetera. Then this fellow that became a doctor gets up and speaks, and he does it all in Japanese. I didn't understand half of what he said, but my parents said it was a very impressive speech. And they were farmers in Torrance before the war, and later on I find out he goes to school and becomes a medical doctor, so I said, my dad says, "See, I told you he's gonna go far." He was studying all the time.

RP: Pretty good judge of character, your dad.

YW: Yeah, my dad said, "That guy is not wasting time. He is taking advantage of the time that he has to take classes by mail if he has to." That's what he was doing.

RP: That was, that was such an important thing, 'cause many people refer to that as the lost years.

YW: Well, he didn't lose, he lost some, but he didn't, he tried to make the most of what he had and studied. And I, to my way of thinking, I'm thinking he's, the youngest one was my age and he went to college. The one above him became a multi-millionaire, became an electronic manufacturer. Then, then this doctor. Then he had an older brother and an older sister and I don't know what they did, but they all became very successful people. They, my parents were very glad to have them as friends. We, we met 'em in camp and after camp we kept in touch forever.

RP: Well, Yo, on behalf of myself and Kirk, thank you so much for a great interview today. Really covered a lot of ground, good ground and great stories.

YW: Well, I hope it fills in some blanks for you.

RP: Tremendously. Tremendously.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.